A review of 'The Racket,' a silent gangster film with a lot of bite to it

"The Racket," is a silent gangster film that was produced by Howard Hughes no less. To some silent gangster films don't sound like they have a lot to them, well that's not true. "The Racket," just because you don't hear the bullets or the snappy dialogue doesn't mean skimped out any action or snappy movie quotes. The movie personally is a must see for any diehard gangster film fan.

The actor who played, Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) had a face for the part, he almost reminded me of Marv from the Frank Miller's Sin City comics. Anyway, basically the movie is about the usual corruption in the city and you have your hard-boiled police officer (Thomas Meighan) who wants to clean up the place. Scarsi thinks he's smart because he has the District Attorney around his finger and other high officials but what our cop friend has that Scarsi doesn't is alibis that aren't afraid of him and some grit. There are some scenes in the movie that are wow, cars crashing, shootouts, flappers, and everything that one wants in their gangster movie is in this 20s film. The director Lewis Milestone didn't sugarcoat anything, so much that there is one scene where a cop gets murdered right in the station! It's the Probation Era!

As a personal viewpoint there was nothing boring about the movie and would like to note the character Miss Keyes (Marie Prevost), loved her. Her character was not overshadowed and somewhat even steals the show. She has a spicy attitude and event tells off the Nick while the rest were afraid of him. She bought the humor to the movie. Not really anything to complain about with this gem.

So silent and gangster aficionados that haven't seen this movie should, it has it's intense moments, the cast works perfectly and makes the movie look like were hanging out on the brooding violent city streets. It's your classical tale of cop vs. powerful gangster, so watch on who wins!